This invention relates to a method of and an apparatus for manufacturing bead assemblies for tires, and more particularly to a method of and an apparatus for manufacturing a bead assembly which consists of a ring-shaped bead core, a bead filler and a flipper by continuous automated steps.
As shown in FIG. 34, in the inner part of a tire T, ring-shaped bead cores W each of which consists of a bundle of metal wires are disposed in the left and right bead portions, and bead fillers F of hard rubber around the outer circumferences of the bead cores, both end portions of a carcass 201 being folded up so as to wrap these bead cores W and bead fillers F in the folded portions. For forming such a tire, a bead core W and a bead filler F are prepared in the form of a bead assembly in which these parts are combined unitarily in advance. In the production of a high-performance tire, a bead assembly, in which a flipper consisting of a rubber-coated cotton cloth is attached on the inner circumferential portion of a bead assembly mentioned previously so as to cover both side surfaces of the bead core and bead filler therewith, is used in some cases.
The assembling of these bead assemblies has heretofore been done manually in general cases. The manual assembling of one of these bead assemblies is done by initially provided a ring-shaped bead core W as shown in FIG. 35(A), and then winding belt type unvulcanized rubber as a bead filler F, which is cut to a length equal to the outer circumferential length of the bead core W, around the outer circumference of the bead core W as shown in FIG. 35(B) , to obtain a complete product. In the case of the manual assembling of a bead assembly for a high-performance tire, a step of attaching a flipper Fr consisting of an unvulcanized rubber-impregnated reinforcing cloth on the previously-mentioned bead assembly is further carried out so as to cover the inner circumferential surface of the bead core W and both side surfaces of the bead filler F therewith as shown in FIG. 35(C).
However, since assembling a bead assembly by such a manual operation requires a great deal of skill, the operation efficiency and productivity become low. Since such bead assemblies are produced by manual operations, different assembling accuracies result from different parts, so that it is difficult to obtain high-quality bead assemblies.